Found on the Web: ‘DD Shipping – Transhipment Platform Between Shortsea and Inland Shipping’

October 2015

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November 19, 2015

With its two quays (440 m) along the Brussels-Scheldt maritime canal in Puurs and its 13 ha of storage room DD Shipping is increasingly presenting itself as a logistic transhipment platform between shortsea and inland shipping. Thanks to the 9-metre draught at the quayside, ships of up to 10,000 tonnes can be accommodated. That way e.g. clay, rubble, debris, sand, lava, peat, tree-trunks and tree-bark can be shipped in. Sorting is done at the adjoining yard.

A crane (an E-Crane) equipped with a claw and able to lift up to 10 tonnes up to 32 metres provides fast handling. In July, for instance, a coaster (ex Figueira da Foz – Portugal) loaded with 1,218 tonnes of tree-bark was transhipped directly into a lighter in barely 6 hours time. The box-shaped coaster made a transhipment cadence of 600 cbm per hour possible (200 tonnes).

DD Shipping, which has been active since 1989, annually handles 80 coasters congestion-free, amounting to 500,000 cbm or 210,000 tonnes of goods. With the help of 420 inland barges an annual global volume of 1,000,000 cbm or 710,000 tonnes of goods find their way to their destination. The geographical perimeter reaches from the Gulf of Finland to the Mediterranean.

During the first six months of 2015 275,000 cbm of (basic) products destined for agriculture and horticulture were shipped in by shortsea, representing some 100,000 tonnes.

In Puurs DD Shipping still has 2 ha of space with direct access to the quay at its disposal for further development of its activities. They also have facilities in Grimbergen, Ghent and Brussels.